Burying Radioactive Waste (Part 1)

Waiting for new waste solutions, power plants across the country are still stacking spent fuel in concrete casks like this one at the Yucca Mountain site. (Photo courtesy of the US DOE)

Hazardous radioactive waste is building up at nuclear power plants across the country. For decades, the U-S government’s only plan was to stick that waste out of sight and out of mind … far below Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Recently, President Barack Obama scrapped that plan. Shawn Allee looks at where the President wants to go now:
http://environmentreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/100325_allee_feature.mp3

Transcript

Hazardous radioactive waste is building up at nuclear power plants across the country.

For decades, the U-S government’s only plan was to stick that waste out of sight and out of mind … far below Yucca Mountain, Nevada.

Recently, President Barack Obama scrapped that plan.

Shawn Allee looks at where the President wants to go now.

The old nuclear waste plan was simple: take spent fuel leftover from nuclear reactors and bury it under Yucca Mountain.

That would have moved the problem away from nuclear power plants and people who live nearby.

The Obama Administration cut the program but only said, the program “has not proven effective.”

Energy Secretary Steven Chu tried explaining that to the U-S Senate.

“I don’t believe one can say, scientists are willing to say Yucca Mountain is the ideal site, given what we know today and given what we believe can be developed in the next 50 years.”

So … Obama’s administration is switching gears, and government scientists have to adjust.

“I worked at Yucca Mountain for ten years.”

Mark Peters is a deputy director at Argonne National Laboratory west of Chicago.

“I ran the testing program, so I got intimate involvement in Yucca Mountain. The license application has pieces of me all through it.”

Peters says he’s disappointed Yucca Mountain was killed.

But he says that’s a personal opinion – he’s on board with the new policy.

In fact … he’s helping it along.

Obama created a blue-ribbon commissison.

Commissioners will come up with new solutions for nuclear waste within two years.

Peters will tell them about new technology.

“There are advanced reactor concepts that could in fact do more effective burning of the fuel, so the spent fuel’s not so toxic when the fuel comes out.”

Peters says these “fast breeder reactors” might not just produce less nuclear waste.

They might use the old stuff that was supposed to head to Yucca.

“You extract the usable content, make a new fuel and burn it in a reactor, so you actually get to the point where you’re recycling the uranium and plutonium and other elements people’ve heard about.”

The AEC pushed hard to bury nuclear waste in a salt mine, even though scientists in Kansas had doubts.

“And then it turned out that the salt mine they had planned to place the waste in was not technically suitable either. So, what the AEC did was to lose its battle on both political and technical grounds.”

Walker says for 15 years, the government scouted for another location to dump hazardous nuclear waste.

“There was lots of vocal public opposition to even investigating sites.”